Ninja the Protector

Ninja the Protector is yet another triumph for the 'versatile ninja master' Richard Harrison, and an astonishing masterclass in suspense and action that only Joseph Lai could serve up.

When faced with the tyranny of an evil ninja empire run by an overweight accountant, our hero resorts to the only weapon a ninja can when faced with certain death - a 500cc racing motorbike. In a tense scene suitably offset with the mellow strummings of Pink Floyd, Richard demonstrates some of his broad reportoire of jaw dropping action stunts that, quite rightly, put Jackie Chan's efforts in the shade.

A must for all Harrison fans, serious action junkees and devotees of films spliced together in an incredibly obvious way to shift a few copies in the West.

Once again 'harry' must stop the ninja empire. This time by

infiltrating a model agency with the help of one of his agents who

he doesn't share screen time with (one of the downsides to being

in a film cut together from 2 films). Harrison does rather touchingly

keep a photo of his model/ninja friend who i think is called Warren. Harrison has honed his martial arts skills to perfection for this

film and it has paid off in spades. He's great with a blowpipe and

his teleportation skills just get better and better. i only have two complaints with this film.

Firstly: It's quite hard to see Harrison in his Ninja attire due to the

fact it's camoflage material and often Harrison vanishes into the

background. Especially during scenes filmed in a park.

Secondly: I couldn't watch the end because it concentrated on

Warren's relationship with his brother David. David's not a

handsome chap and seeing him do the nasty with a random

wench made my eyes bleed.

Overall though i'd give it 9/10. It's the kind of film that makes you

want to run up a hill in your pyjamas and shout NINJA! loudly.

Quite frankly Ninja The Protector is the most fantastic display of choreographical supremacy that I have ever had the good fortune to lay my hands on- and only for a single pound. This movie has provided hours and hours of entertainment: Not only do we have waggly-hand-gesture-instant-ninja-costume-changing, WITH SMOKE EFFECTS, but flamethrower hands, shurikens which move at 3 miles per hour and katanas which clang and don't injure ANYONE after multiple cartwheels.

Astounding! The warren chapters were highly erotic- the pornographic rating of this film almost filling me with orgasmic delight as completely irrelevant plot-devices fill the air: The only actual clue as to warren's involvement in the actual overplot of the film being incomprehensible, and all pivoting on the showing of a photograph at the beginning of the film by our godly uberhero- wossname. Cameo Ninja... Thingy...

Basically, there are fights, fat blonde white guys and random acts of stupidity and porn- WITH MOTORBIKES!!!! This is quite simply the best manfilm ever. Hats off to you all.

The late-80s/early-90s was the golden era of the action hero: Sly and Arnie were tops at the box office, whilst second-tier stars like Chuck, Dolph, Van Damme and Seagal cleaned up on VHS. Even Speakman and Dudikoff became recognisable names, not just amongst die-hard fans of fight flicks, but with normal folk who arrived too late at the video shop to rent out the newest releases but didn't want to go home empty handed.

Richard Harrison, on the other hand, is a name that will probably only be familiar to those who weren't afraid to delve into the darkest depths of the dreaded bottom shelf (reserved for only the lowest budgeted Z-grade garbage). Sporting an ultra-macho Selleck-style 'tache and often seen clad from head to toe in a crap camouflage suit, Harrison was the star of many a Ninja film from legendary director Godfrey Ho, who would cobble his films together with little regard for logic or narrative cohesion.

Ninja Protector is a fairly unexceptional example of such a movie: the plot is typically all over the place, the result of Harrison's Ninja footage having been clumsily spliced together with an old Hong Kong film; ninjas materialise out of nowhere to do battle with each other, resulting in the usual frenetic sword-based martial arts mayhem; and the action is regularly punctuated by soft-core sex scenes featuring a selection of nubile Asian honeys. Those familiar with this type of junk may find it mildly entertaining for the duration, but the film sadly lacks any of the truly bizarre stuff that occasionally qualifies such ninja nonsense as unmissable.

No matter how many ninja films one sees it always looks to me like people fighting wearing pyjamas. This is particularly true in this film where the Richard Harrison character wears a natty pair of duds that look perfect for bedtime. Which makes the ninja fights he is in look silly. When he puts on his ninja suit he also looks slimmer. At least they could have had someone similar in size to Richard Harrison. He was a big boy.

The film is a hybrid of at least two others but one never knows. It could be more. The western actors are dubbed but their lip are saying the same dialogue anyway so it becomes quite surreal. The Hong Kong actors are also dubbed but one gets used to that in martial art films anyway even though their lip movements are so different. Being a hybrid the plot wavers all over the place. When a character says, "Tiger has been killed" you think, who heck is Tiger? Is my memory going or did they ever appear? A rambling plot, tame fight scenes and plain acting are not even redeemed by a couple of sex scenes as they are just as boring as the rest of the film. Not good, not good at all.